TF2 To Become Free?

Rumours are aswirl that TF2 may, after nearly 4 years, become completely free. It would make sense, and seems like a very Valve thing to do, and it's another reason, despite my great and abiding love for Quake 3, that I will feel no grief if Quake Live crashes and burns.

My one concern if they were to do this would be that it would become much easier to circumvent VAC bans, or other server-specific bans for douchebaggery. If it’s free to play, all you need to do is make a new steam account, and you’re completely in the clear from your bans, without having to buy a new copy of the game. I hope that if Valve is planning on making TF2 free-to-play, that they also have some way to help address this.

This was being discussed over on the SomethingAwful forums, and someone brought up katrel’s point about VAC bans. It might be that the f2p version of TF2 is crippled somehow – perhaps only vanilla weapons or limited play time. One other suggestion I thought had merit is if Valve starts giving away free copies of TF2 with all other Valve game purchases.

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